To Kolda and back

Back in Dakar after a productive, exhausting and arduous journey to Kolda and its environs. The trip was excellent, and I was able to interview a variety of fascinating folks, including a prostitute, who was eager to talk to me about her work and her advocacy on behalf of sex workers in the region, several peer educators, who field the questions many young people are too embarrassed to ask their parents, and an elderly, soft-spoken imam, who welcomed us into his home but whose hand I was forbidden to shake, and in whose company I kept my head lowered and my scarf draped over my hair.

All in all, a fantastic experience: the UNFPA office in Kolda is headed by the inimitable Cheikh Ba, whose deep laugh is reminiscent of Dr. Hibbert’s (of The Simpsons: “Oh, yes, AIDS education is definitely a challenge when you are teaching within in the context of an Islamic culture. A real challenge. But what can you do except try?” (Big smile). “Heh heh heh.”) Our driver, Dieme, deserves some kind of medal for tackling the 12-hour journey between Dakar and Kolda (and back again) with superhuman patience and an apparently bottomless appetite for listening to a single cassette tape of traditional Gambian music. And then there’s Arthur, whose year-long post as information officer with the UNFPA apparently involves not only cheerfully accompanying hapless journalists on days-long journeys to the far reaches of the country, but also taking over interviews when my French failed me and/or the searing heat had reduced my brain to a useless lump. I don’t think I would have survived the trip (and certainly I would not have laughed nearly as much) if Arthur hadn’t been unlucky enough to be tasked with my care and feeding (the latter was an adventure in and of itself).

So now I am reinstated at the hotel in Les Almadies, back at my table in the garden, surrounded by curious gecko lizards and the friendly hotel staff, all of whom have made a point of stopping by my makeshift workstation to inquire about my trip, my health, my family’s health, my work, my sleeping habits and my general wellbeing. They all seem genuinely surprised but shyly gratified when I turn the questions back on them.

And now, a few choice lessons learned in the course of the last five days:

1. “Bad” roads in Senegal are, in fact, not just “bad,” but well nigh impassable. On the trip down to Kolda, I was prepared for bumps, maybe some potholes. What we encountered was less like a road and more like tiny strips of asphalt, barely wide enough for tires, surrounded by four-foot craters of red dust. Your choices, when confronted with this situation, are as follows: You can drive sloooowly around the craters, hoping to avoid the worst of them, you can barrel over them at high speed, hoping to skim over the tops, or you can just get off the road altogether and drive on a dirt path, crunching over sun-hardened foliage and scraping against tree branches. Dieme employed all three methods, with varying degrees of success.

After seven hours of bouncing along, fearing for the state of my internal organs, I began to compose a letter to the Senegalese government: “Dear sirs: I hope this letter finds you, your family, and your various and sundry acquaintances and colleagues in good health. I hope you will accept this missive not as a criticism, but instead as a well-intentioned attempt to call to your attention the…um… problematic state of your country’s major motorways….” After an hour of this exercise, passing numerous freight trucks that had pulled over (or, more often, just stopped in the middle of the “road”) after blowing out their tires, I realized that perhaps a Senegalese-style letter of excruciating politeness was not the way to go, and that maybe I would be better off organizing some kind of march on the Presidential Palace.

At this point, of course, it occurred to me that despite the occasional tire-burning at the country’s universities, usually in response to inadequate facilities, this is also a country where the possibility of a stolen presidential election prompts loud and good-natured debate, but no tangible sense of outrage or visible protest. (It sounds familiar, I know. Except for the good-natured debate part). So I resigned myself to mild whiplash, reminding myself that I am only a guest here, and I am not in a position to criticize. (See next item).

2. When my parents took my brother and me to Europe (I was 14 and my brother was 11), my father sat us down beforehand and gave us this bit of advice: “Kids, here’s the thing. We’re not going to be in any one place long enough to truly understand the culture, or the food, or the customs. And that means we won’t have enough information to pass judgment or to criticize anything. So if you don’t like something, like the food, you shouldn’t say it’s bad. You should just say that it’s ‘different.’” Even now, “different”maintains special meaning in my family. And it’s with my dad’s wise words echoing in my head that I pronounce the Senegalese bathroom situation as wildly “different.” Let’s say you’re anywhere but the most Toubab-oriented hotel. Flushing toilets? Don’t count on it. Toilet paper? Not unless you’re really lucky. Sink with running water? Oh, please. Soap? I think not. And don’t even bother looking for a garbage can; you won’t find one.

3. When visiting a Senegalese village in the company of an NGO, it’s not uncommon to find the entire population waiting for you, gathered under a tree, which you hope has provided them some relief from the wilting heat. If you are white, there is a strong possibility that at least one small child will take one look at you and start screaming in terror. If the visit is truly deemed a special occasion, you will be offered a soda, cooled in a bucket of water and ice, and you are expected to drink this soda with great relish, in full view of the company, despite the fact that you are sitting next to empty-handed village elders who look like they could probably use a nice cold drink.

4. In a region (Kolda/Casamance) where the AIDS rate is six times higher than in Dakar (3 percent vs. .5 percent), there is a curious absence of people who will admit to knowing anyone who is HIV positive. Although everyone from the youngest students to the imam assured me that they would treat such people with kindness and acceptance (a favorite response is that “AIDS is a disease like any other, like malaria,”) not a single person copped to knowing anyone who is sick. I can only infer that either they are in denial, lying or, and this is perhaps the most likely explanation, the stigma of the disease is still so powerful that anyone who is HIV positive is too ashamed to discuss their health status.

5. Donkeys are not afraid of cars.

6. Neither are cows.

7. If a monkey crosses the road in front of your car, it’s a sign of good luck. If you get out of the car along a dirt road, the sound of the door closing echoing into the silence of the vast, brown countryside, and 35 golden-haired monkeys run out from under their cool hiding place beneath the road, it’s a sign that you’ve disturbed a lot of big monkeys, and you should probably get back into the car.

So there you have it. I will post photos as soon as I can.

Now it’s back to work in Dakar, for a last, frenzied push of reporting.